01.17 - I Shall Survive Selling Potions!

The waiting time in sparring room two was more than the expected half hour. The room had an open ceiling with a small roofed viewer terrace and an earthen combat area in the center.

“Next up, Tiffany and Klein,” a guild employee finally said. “Combat evaluation. Suggested rank…” he paused and double checked his notes. “...Steel.”

“Oi, are they serious?” one bloke in the back said.

“I heard ‘Big Boy’ brought them in,” another said.

“Talk about nepotism,” a third one whispered while the people around him seemed to agree.

“It seems a few of our regulars disapprove,” said a man who had just entered the room. He looked burly. Not as muscle packed as Kentaro, but still almost in a league of his own.

His leather armor was filled to the brim with medals and decoration.

Must be the guild master.

“Usually Kentaro or I would do a Steel rank evaluation,” he said. “But maybe someone else wants to volunteer?”

Murmurs erupted from the audience of the terrace, especially from three men that were just promoted to Iron rank. More than five hands went up, with another four seemingly still considering.

“I hope you don’t mind,” the guildmaster added.

“You can send the whole room, for all I care,” Tia said.

Great.

That insult hit right into the hornets nest.

We were now faced with eleven opponents, instead of two.

The match had barely begun when the three closest fighters began their attack on me, while a mage in the back began an incantation “Vater des Feuers, Mutter der Flamme, erhoere meinen Ruf…” (“Father of fire, mother of flame, I call upon…”)

As usual, I parried the first three attackers, then used Riposte in quick succession, wounding one and driving off the other two.

But the timing of their retreat was a bit too good.

They were making way for a giant fireball coming to burn me and Tia further in the back.

I estimated the trajectory and then countered with ‘Spell Parry’, sending it right back where it had come from, searing another opponent's dominant arm in the process.

Nine left to fight.

The caster in the back had almost finished a second spell. “...Ehre sei dem Boten des Wassermanns. Sturzflut!” (“... glory to the messenger of Aquarius. Water Torrent!”)

“Tia?!” I called.

“On it,” she said while she raised her right hand with her index and middle fingers stretched out.

The stream of water ran straight into a freshly conjured wall of fire, filling almost the entire battlefield with steam.

I used the confusion to employ a combination of ‘Weak Point Analysis’ and ‘Disarm’, striking the hands of three remaining combatants.

Down to four swordsmen, one spear user, and the caster in the back, who already started her third incantation. She really was the most annoying out of the six.

‘Warp Strike’ closed the distance, but she swiftly aimed her staff at me. I dodged her strike at the last second, then struck the back of her head with my swordhilt.

She collapsed.

“Dodge to the left!” Tia called as the spearman aimed for my right shoulder.

A small evasion led into another combo of ‘Parry’, ‘Riposte’ and finally ‘Disarm’.

The attention of the final three combatants was now almost solely focused on me.

Tia used their lap of judgement to trap their feet in a quagmire.

They struggled as the ground around their ankles solidified.

“Enough,” the guildmaster said. “The two of you pass!”

—

With all the setup complete, I began to work in my new calling as an Alchemist, with plenty of part time adventurer work under our alias to procure ingredients, accumulate additional Experience points, and all that came with them.

A good year went by under this new arrangement.

It was now slightly past my sixteenth birthday.

Tia and I had managed to source enough money to pay off the greater part of my family's debt.

We were not yet completely out of the red, partially thanks to my mothers ongoing shenanigans.

All in all, life was good.

Our adventurer alter egos had both almost advanced to Silver rank.

We regularly went on quests as Tiffany and Klein. Usually with Kentaro, and occasionally his niece’s party, who had all almost reached Iron rank by now.

I used some of my Points to level up my existing Classes, especially Cleric. Mainly because that line of Skills promised effects not possible with simple alchemy. It also provided cheap access to large amounts of ‘Blessed salts’ of higher quality.

Dawn was doing fine with her studies in the Magic Academy, almost outstanding and quite a bit above your average student. Dawn, Tia, and I usually met twice a week. Sometimes with Alfred in tow, sometimes with a few of Dawn's friends.

My almost monopoly on rainbow slime jelly was an open secret by now.

Though I did reduce the supply side a bit and made sure no one followed me, when I tracked down their current locations and used Steal to obtain their royal jelly, so as to not endanger the hidden rainbow slime population too much.

Isabella and her father, Geber, had also figured out part of the secret behind my potions.

Using substitutes of higher quality, like drops of Tia’s dragon blood instead of drakes, or salts blessed by a higher level Cleric, who also happened to be me, could increase the potency of the resulting potion a lot, if the right person was mixing them.

The right person in this case meant me. They, like most others, did not know of the Level System behind the Skills.

All in all, the workshop was doing well.

I occasionally used ‘For the Good of The Many’ to increase Isabella’s Levels while pretending to teach her my secrets. Worked like a charm. But she had made good progress in general during this last year, even without my support.

They opted to sell mostly diluted versions of my portions alongside some of their own making.

The lower production costs allowed them to sell at a discount, keeping the competition from the shop of ‘The Great Works Company’ at bay. Though Lord Isaac’s conglomerate did continue to attract most of the new wannabe alchemists, and drove four of the five other workshops out of business in the last two years.

But except for that, life seemed good so far.

That all changed when a new subsidiary of the ‘The Great Works Company’ opened up right across the street from the Tria Prima family’s workshop.